Posts Tagged ‘Mosquito net’

OK, lets start with the thickness of the mosquito netting used for mosquito nets. You can probably find this information on another page on this site but to save you time, I will go through it again now.

The denier refers to the thickness of the material or mosquito netting in our case. Our Guardian mosquito nets which include box mosquito nets and conical mosquito nets were 100 Denier but our new stock now are 75 denier.

Our mosquito net tents are 50 denier along with our Venice and Mykonos mosquito nets. You can view these nets here:

All our mosquito nets are 100% polyester. This is the best fabric as dirt and other materials slide off unlike cotton or natural fibers. There is no advantage in using cotton or natural fibers, you don’t stay cooler. A hole is a hole and they both let air through – unless you are physically sleeping on the netting – but why would you do that anyway!

The mosquito netting – be it 50 denier, 75 or 100 are all strong and your net/s should last for many years.

Color. Our mosquito netting comes in white, white and white. What color would you like?!

Sorry but we do not sell mosquito netting rolls – just mosquito nets and mosquito net tents ready made.

If I have not covered something you would like to know about in regards mosquito netting, go to the contact page and send me an email.

In today’s post I will just skim over some quick facts about malaria and it’s impact on the world today. Most of this information has been sourced from The Roll Back Malaria website http://www.rollbackmalaria.org/keyfacts.html .

Facts:

247 million cases of malaria/year

212 Million/year in Africa, 21 million/year in Asia, 8.1 Million/year in The Middle East, 2.7 Million cases/year in the Americas

881,000/year world wide die from Malaria of which 801 000 of those are in Africa. 38 000 in The Middle east, 36 000 in Asia and 3000 in The America’s

3.3 Billion People are at risk of malaria (half of the World population)

Nigeria ranks #1 in malaria cases with over 57 million cases per year. There are over 23 million cases in The Democratic Republic of The Congo, Ethiopia has 12 million cases and Tanzania and Kenya with over 11 million cases per year.

85% of children that contract malaria under 5 die from the virus

40% of health spending in Sub Saharan Africa Countries goes toward fighting malaria, this has a huge impact on the economies of Africa

12 billion dollars lost in annual GDP (1.3% of total)

Are we making progress in the “fight against malaria”?

The good news yes we are making progress as you can see below:

Up till a few years ago between 1 and 2 million people died each year from malaria. That figure is now 881 Thousand.

Eritrea and Rwanda report a 50% drop in malaria cases between 2000 -2006-07 because of large deployment of Long Lasting Insecticide Treated Mosquito Nets (LLIN), Insecticidal sprays and diagnostic drugs.

In 2004 there was 12 Million LLIN’s made and distributed, in 2010 there will be 100 million Long Lasting Mosquito Nets made and distributed with the goal of covering 750 million people (this includes net already distributed and being used) by the end of this year (2010).

Why are there less people dying from malaria now?

The introduction of Long Lasting Insecticide Treated nets which keep people safe and kill mosquitoes – therefore decreasing their populations. These nets are very strong and do not need to be re-treated – even after washing them more than 20 times!

Annual funding just a few years ago was 1.1 billion dollars and it is now over 6 billion dollars which goes towards: treated mosquito nets, insecticidal sprays, anti malarial drugs and rapid diagnostic kits.

Things are getting better because Governments, N.G.O’s, the media and citizens are all taking action to tackle malaria.

If you are wanting to purchase mosquito nets from mosquito nets online to donate to a charity of any kind we will donate (usually) 1 net for every 10 purchased to your cause.

A couple of years back I embraced the internet – in relation to business and making a living. What would I sell on-line? Well as you can read at the “about us” page on Mosquito Nets On-Line (http://www.mosquitonetsonline.com/aboutus.htm) the obvious choice was mosquito nets – of course!

OK – not so obvious. It came about because I read a book called the four work week by Timothy Ferris (now a New York Bestseller) – a young entrepreneur who is all about maximizing ones time by focusing on the jobs or activities that take 20% of your time and give you back 80% of the benefits (when you are aware of the concept you will see it working everywhere).

Tim was earning very good money (he sells 1 unique sports supplement) to retails stores in the main, but was working 60-80 hours per week and had no life. A trip overseas was the catalyst for change. He realized that he had to stop chasing up the leads that had very low yield.

He started to apply the “80-20 rule” (mentioned above) on his own business by “outsourcing” all tasks to “virtual staff” – usually half way around the world and eliminating tasks that yield very low if any benefit to his business. He started to “streamline” his operation and I guess – he essentially “fired himself”!

Tim relays the message that you get more done with a couple of planned, focused hours of work per day – on the strategy of business, rather than “busying yourself on low yield” menial day to day tasks that any one could do. The outcome of freeing up your time to focus on the direction of you business and your life, is more money/hour worked, and more time to do the things you truly love doing like spending time with friends and family, playing sports, hobbies, traveling or working on other business opportunities. He says that his business then started to grow rapidly, as he was now not in way of it.

Tim also has some great “time maximizing ideas” for regular workers that have a more conventional 9-5 job and are not business owners.

So to cut a long story short, I have applied many of his and other entrepreneurs ideas in setting up mosquito nets online.

Communicating with the World

It is nice to sell good products that help people all over the World. Just Yesterday I sold 120 mosquito nets (and donated some) through a partner in Africa to an American Charity who purchased on behalf of a Ugandan School (actually the transaction to me, was “technically” done while I was sleeping in my bed – in Sydney Australia!). So we have “players” in this scenario located in: Africa, Australia, America and the nets originally being produced in Asia!

Another Lady (in Missouri) yesterday wanted to buy 5 summer nets and wanted to know if she could have a discount. I emailed back – “of course you can” and gave her some prices and then a few minutes later she purchased. I have the “Payment Notification” show up in my email in-box (a beautiful sight), I cut and paste her details into “my on-line warehouse interface (account)”. I see it is $15 to send the nets on the “shipping price estimate” and I click on “submit”. The goods are picked from my stock the next morning and leave from Chicago arriving a few days later. Now, I think that is pretty cool and I’m thankful that I can be involved in such an interesting, fun, challenging, profitable system.

Find a System and Solve a Problem

So…. I found a system that worked, and then found a product (mosquito nets) that people needed and were willing to purchase.

If you want a mosquito net delivered to you within a few days, get back onto the “product page” and if your interested in Tim’s “4 hour work week book” I have included a link just below, that will take you to Amazon Books where you can grab a copy for a few dollars – it’s a great read.

The insecticide that is used on our nets are all World Health Organization (W.H.O) Approved. Only in vary rare cases when someone allergic to these chemicals can they not be used. However chemicals do not get W.H.O approval easily.

These insecticides are used on nets and around houses and community “public spaces” in area’s where mosquitoes are a risk to the local peoples. A couple of these insecticides that are used on our nets are Deltamethrin and Alpha-Cypermethrin. Deltamethrin is used on our treated Venice and Mykonos mosquito nets and Alpha-Cypermethrin are used on our Guardian net range. All these nets except of the Guardian Rectangular nets also come non treated.

Do you need a treated net and why do people use them?

Mosquitoes will not get through a net which has no holes in it and hangs in a way that there are no openings for them to get in from the side or underneath. However, what they do, is actually kill mosquitoes and therefore reduce mosquito populations. This is huge plus for the millions of people that live in communities (in a lot of developing countries) where mosquitoes carry diseases such as malaria and dengue fever.

Treated nets are not necessary in most Developing Countries where mosquito borne disease are not a problem, however if you a want to take vengeance on them and take a few down while you sleep – use a treated mosquito net!

This program is based around a 3 “pronged” attack on the elimination of Malaria, Dengue Fever, Leishmaniasis, and other viruses carried by mosquitoes, ticks, biting sand-flies and other insects on a local level.

This is basically a smaller version of programs carried out by Governments, The World Health Organization, UNICEF and other NGO’S.

The 3 “pronged” attack is:

Use of Long Lasting Insecticide Treated mosquito nets (LLIN’S)

Residual wall spraying

Larviciding

Step 1. LLIN’S

Long Lasting Insecticide Treated Nets are a vast improvement on the old treated nets which only remain chemically active for 6 months and even less so if was washed regularly.

How do they work? The human body attracts the mosquito during the night; the mosquito net (which has been chemically treated using a World Health Organization approved chemical) takes out the mosquito with it dying within 24 hours.

You can only be sure that you have a legitimate LLIN if it has passed exhaustive testing by the World Health Organization Pesticide Evaluation Scheme (WHOPES). Many companies say they use WHO guidelines for net treatment but there is no critical examination of their products, effectiveness and how long they will last.

LLIN’S nets must be effective even after 20 washes or 5 years of use. They also must be over 75 Denier in net strength.

Only 6 ‘’brands’’ have currently achieved W.H.O recommendation; we use these nets for LLIN supplies in counties where mosquito viruses are prevalent .

Step 2. Residual wall spraying

Nets will keep you safe at night but we also have to take out some mosquitoes that bite during the day (Dengue fever carriers) and ticks bedbugs and other vectors. Mosquitoes can also be sleeping and or nesting in different parts of a house in corners or under eaves.

The chemical for spraying is mixed with water and then sprayed on house surfaces with it lasting over 6 months. Spraying just before the wet season starts is vital.

Step 3. Larviciding

Once we have applied steps 1 and 2 to individuals and dwellings we concentrate on a “Community” level, targeting breeding grounds for mosquito larvae. There are three ways to do this:

A) You can use safe approved chemicals on Stagnant water

B) Eliminate such bodies of water when practical

C) Introduce or re-introduce Indigenous mosquito eating fish, this is a natural way to control mosquito larvae

So there we have it – how to decrease acute deaths and illness from mosquito bites and how to decrease the numbers of mosquitoes.

We of course sell treated and non treated nets on our site http://www.mosquitonetsonline.com . We also supply small to medium size bulk orders of LLIN’s to groups throughout Africa, Asia and South America.